The Bonanza Mine: An Artifact-Filled Mine Untouched for Years! (Part 1 of 2)

hi everyone this is nick from forgotten mining history this two-part series will document what i believe is the most incredible mine featured on my channel so far the amount of artifacts left inside here is staggering i'm not going to be showing the outside of this mine so instead we're going to start our exploration right here on the 200 level also stay tuned until the end to see a sneak peak of part two hope you guys enjoy looks like we have some artifacts here check check those out and all the little round guys yeah blasting cap tin lids oh nice some of them are very clean oh that's cool watch out there there may be some live caps in this area so if you keep a close eye out oh here we go another one of those [Music] the logo looks gone though this is a wrapper for something oh here's another tobacco uh rapper wrapper over there was the seal that went around this guy hey nick here we have some goggles yeah and that seal over there the blue one yeah it used to be the seal around here see the remnants of it so when you got it new it would be it would have a freshness seal this one you could read pretty good yeah the other one was really nice too very cool all right let's continue on okay we have a stop going down this looks like a really nice way to get down to the 300 foot level and xavier seems pretty excited so i must have found something pretty cool hey you gotta check this out all right i gently flipped it over look at that it also has an advertisement for the lone ranger listening to it on the radio or i believe that was a talent on the show actually 10 cents for a loaf of bread though that's really cool that's what i like to hear oh just don't quit well this is far enough little hand steel here looks homemade by the sort of just the unevenness of it that's a really short one huh yeah they it was likely longer and they just worked the hell out of it except that guy right there as far as i research they're either gypsum or epsomite so i just climbed down this little hole that heads down probably to the 300 foot level and i found a very strange container we think it might be like a water container but it has a wooden handle it's a pretty neat find okay we're gonna start heading down this way down to the next level okay so we just worked our way down the stop and we broke open into this massive room and this is just packed full of artifacts it's incredible uh so i guess i'll start here with this apache powder company down in my box you can see this one's an old one and over here we have an antique shovel complete with a handle here we have a maxwell's house coffee can and in this little pail we have a bag full of brand new drill bits that is awesome you can see we have a bag here that once contained nails same with this one and in this little cluster we have a coffee pot looks like they're using uh that for oil or grease and another pot and we have a caster lube oil can this is just incredible this is just the start of everything in here and there's another little cluster over here we have a beautiful prince albert tobacco can and then two maxwell house coffee cans i've never seen one in this good of a condition this is great and there's not much right over here but we have another apache powder company found in my box all these dynamite boxes are in great shape of course the the lid is missing because they had to get the dynamite out but it's perfect curtis arizona and uh there's even more out of artifacts right down here you can see there's a track running this way right here we have another coffee can this is a sabor sanborns coffee huh looks like they're using this as a little uh classifier that's interesting here we have a an enamelware pot full of orcart spikes huh oh bourbon whiskey right here old sunnybrook brand we got a half half tobacco uh tin this is just in such beautiful condition that's amazing let's see behind me we have some more bottles this one still has a little label on it it says one pint this must have been a alcohol bottle and here we have a kentucky bourbon uh bell whiskey bottle one quart this is all just amazing and while if you think it couldn't get any better it does [Music] we have a complete orcard thank you xavier that was wonderful this is just incredible and uh as you can see it uh still dumps everything and what this was just servicing a uh little sub level between the 200 and 300 foot levels right over here there's an ore bin where they would have dumped all the ore waste rock just like that we've got another dynamite box right over there i don't see a brand on that one here we have a hercules powder in a beautiful condition another oil can and last but not least another dynamite box this one's a giants powder company controlled by the atlas powder company so this one's post 1915. this was just incredible this is a artifact bonanza all right so here's a closer look at this ore car from the side here's the wheels and what's cool is it's covered with a carbide uh tallies to tally all the um ore loads that they dumped into the chute i believe it's on this side as well right yeah it's very interesting oh look there's no more number four oh hey maybe we'll find one two and three right yeah this is an older cart though you can tell by the riveted construction absolutely no welds on it whatsoever uh interesting thing it looks like they ran out of cotter pins yeah so as a substitute they used nails that looks like a zerk fitting for greasing the yeah they're all nails [Applause] this is awesome unfortunately i don't have a mucking plate here so this is just a collapse i'll get some stuff here then once you had filled your car up completely get your shovel down and head over to the orbit where you're going to drop off open up our shoe gate give it a bit of a tip to the side down it goes into the horseshoe below a little farther over just get a nice nice dump out of this guy [Music] all right here's the point of view of a piece of ore [Music] [Music] oh no then i'd be dumped right down there that was pretty we have a little container right here um there's only a piece of the label left but we can just make out that it says log cabin maple syrup and if you look this container is shaped just like a little cabin with a chimney that's pretty neat obviously the the miners were reusing this for something else but it's a very interesting find we've got some bottles here this says uh blue ribbon beer this is table queen sweet pickles and this does not have a label on it i definitely didn't get everything on my first round trip in here the more uh we stick in here the more we find [Music] all right so the orc heart was over there and i'm just going to show you the rest of this level it doesn't go very far again this is just a small sub level but you can see uh they cleared out a bit of the vein right here i have a ladder and at the end is a muck sheet and if you notice right here at the end of the rails they have two rails flipped on their sides and xavier were saying that they did this because as they drove the face further they would slide these uh sideways rails further up and they didn't want to use they don't want to put in you know nice rails because they could get damaged by the blast so they used this method oh all right so we're working our way down deeper into the mine we just climbed down this ladder and we've come to an area with a lot more artifacts i think these are scaling bars right here they would use these to help knock loose rocks down and right here we have what we think is a mold for the gold bars we definitely could be wrong but it definitely has that shape of a gold bar i mean it does have two holes on the bottom but they're not man-made it looks like those are worn through so i don't know it's hard to say we're not sure why it's in here as well right over here we have another hercules dynamite box and another for a hillsborough's coffee can i thought that was a prince albert can for a second and right up here is the oar shoot that was fed by the orcar we got another another shovel right here too interesting and what's cool is you see these ties there is an incline going down here and if i uh pop over this collapse you'll see that the incline just kept going down hopefully you can see this but right where i'm showing my light behind that timber you can see the ties for the incline and then right next to it there's another set of rails probably for a intermediate level this whole area is all collapsed and there's a big stall right here with a metal hammer or handles hammered into it so they would hammer these in and then um use these handles to help pick up and move this massive stool and there's just passages going everywhere here they pulled out a crap ton of war looks very collapsed in this section oh wow we got a massive stop i think i'm gonna head down over this way oh look what is this oh here's another uh bread uh wrapper all right so we're down a bit further here's a much better view of this incline going down you can see they removed the rails though right here we have another set of tracks running off this way so from what xavier said i think it's completely collapsed oh yeah that's all gone but uh this intermediate level continues off this way and there are some more artifacts so here we got a national carbide can use for the miners carbide lamps it's in a great condition behind me we have a a uh giant powder company box and here we have some metal rollers we're thinking that um this was used for the incline behind me to help the cable roll down this is a very big stop that has a collapsed partially keeps running down there there's a drift running off this way and up here there's a little oh there's another drift here huh all right well actually i'm gonna go down this way first and follow xavier i'm not sure what this was a box for hey man you know this might be the 300 foot level check out this newspaper have you ever seen one that intact no i opened it and read it and everything what's the date on it 1935. yep awesome i had to change the batteries here gopro ran out so it's um the los angeles evening herald express look it's got the san anita race tracks uh selections for the horses oh yeah watch out over here it looks like uh i see a lot of blasting cap labels and oh dude check this out okay i think whoever had that newspaper i think that's a horse race ticket really yeah jhl so maybe he was betting on the horses and identification ticket i don't know that's a really neat connection there i mean one of the odds that he'd have the newspaper for that for the race this looks like brand new new cord here huh you see how it's still coiled and everything yeah but we have a safety fuse box there yeah look at that let's see what's in it coast manufacturing and supply company livermore california there's another one sequoia brand huh waterproof safety fuse livermore california let me get a shot at the phone oh here's another one of those metal rollers for the incline huh yep and you can see some grooves worn in it from it being used oh yeah i'm gonna take another look at this newspaper ransom demands huh interesting what does it say for the horses do they have acronyms any of them are jhl jhl i'm looking hmm i don't know i don't really see any acronyms let's see what else is in here national poller day the way they dress so much different yeah look at the hardware selection be gay soviet order of a woman's clothing january clearance the broadway this is a great find i want to see what's down this way oh it just faces off but well yeah you're right i thought i went further yeah still i mean look at all these my camera stack here oh i see that's not a race ticket it's a ticket for the information on the blasting caps for how old they are so not as cool no i don't know i've never been on horses let me get a shot at detonators handle carefully yeah that's a good bit of advice generally yeah i'm thinking uh this is the 300 foot level because i think we're down because because one of these surveys it says 300 something wait what was that 300. well it says 373. on the 200 level everything was like 200 and above so i think i'd say we're down yeah so unfortunately that's collapse over there but if we head down to the 400. we might be able to pop up and uh get to that spot oh yeah oh there's shovels all over newer uh let's see if i can knock the dust off i've seen so many shovels it's uh oh dread red knot safety pieces that's awesome yeah you know there's a drift that runs off this way oh you found another group yeah over here why not go too far oh yeah it just stops here but no it stops but there's some uh dynamite box pieces got to be careful okay there's a bunch of broken dynamite pieces and we have a what is this fly spray huh that's kind of interesting bug repellent it's a standard oil company of california what yeah it's used for flies mosquitoes and gnats spray liberally towards ceiling oh yeah this doesn't go really you can see all the people oh use for moss too and ants roaches and water bugs that's the kind of name you're really careful there might still be dynamite yeah i was i was looking out for it it's got the sawdust in them still okay so we're leaving that level and we're gonna head down this incline down to hopefully several more levels eventually we will reach the water line i'm not exactly sure how many levels are submerged looks like the incline ends right here got a collapsed stop up there and it looks like we have another drift level so this uh incline just right down to here and then they hauled it towards the main shaft prince albert very cool and this was a carbide tin okay so we're gonna stick to the rule of rights and head down the right drift this feels like a main haulage level right here oh that's really cool all right so there's another level about 50 feet down there that has track this is a bolt and where you find track you find or cars so yeah the mining reports say that this was worked off of 100 foot intervals but it seems like there's sub-levels in between each of the main levels like that or car was inside a sub-level i can't quite see down to the tracks on the next level but it does continue down but there's no passage through here yep total collapse you used to go through it one time you could tell by the uh man that's a 12 inch 12 inch square all right so this is where that incline came down and based off of this survey mark i'm guessing we're on the 400 level and we're going to continue this way this something pork and beans sea pork and beans i can't tell who the whose magnificent fork and beans they are but got a nail in there lots of collapse this is a pretty big box right here yeah if you check out this piece of steel here it almost looks like a track switch see how it would hold the rail right there yeah if there's another piece but maybe it went off that way it's hard to say carbide oh cool check out that section of track those stalls up there are holding up anything everything yeah look at this yeah it's like it was part of the incline back there because that was some kind of cache and it's a different diameter so maybe this this was for a bucket line check out oh i'm thinking they're sliding a bucket along here and then that was the bucket catch check out this cloak here so you could there you're right what is the meaning of this good shot of that of course they drove the hook clean through the board cotton rope over here so we're perhaps continuing this on through yeah so we must be on the 500 level i think that's actually the skip down there it is that's the skip for the incline we toss a rocking you

Channel: Forgotten Mining History

Views: 267,750

Rating: 4.8631401 out of 5

Keywords: mine, mines, mine exploring, mine exploration, abandoned mine, abandoned mines, ore car, ore cart, mine car, mine cart, minecart, rails, track, artifacts, cans, bottles, underground, adit, stope, shaft, incline, skip, tools, vintage, historic, history, abandoned, exploring, exploration, adventure, massive, gold, gold mine, mining, geology, vein, stopes

Id: UsWA51eeIhM

Length: 32min 1sec (1921 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020